I spent a fair amount of time this morning talking on the phone with a friend who’s dealing with a serious cancer diagnosis and difficult treatment scenario. She’ll probably be facing a stem cell transplant in a few weeks and wanted to talk with me about my experience.
I was happy to answer questions, listen to her concerns, and just generally offer support. What I didn’t anticipate was how our conversation would make me realize how distanced I felt from an experience that was unbelievably intense at the time.
It brought to mind something I read just the other day (can’t remember where, unfortunately), about how — while our human brains will remember that something was painful — we can’t actually feel that pain again (which must be why women are able to give birth multiple times).
Of course, it all started coming back to me as I dredged up my memories. And I suddenly realized that this time last year I was in full-on transplant preparation mode.
To bring it into clearer focus, I went back to my July 2022 calendar and discovered that from July 11-29 I had twenty different medical appointments — from lab draws and chemo infusions; to oncologist, cardiology, pulmonary, and physical therapy appointments; culminating in my second bone marrow biopsy.
And now? It’s hard to believe all that really happened.
Rather strange, actually.